Assembling Computer Part 2 and ARM

Hi Guys!

Part 2 of Assembling the Computer was not really interesting enough to warrant a whole post, but I'll just finish it off quickly for you all.

So the next part was dealing with this mess of wires-- which actually connect the different parts of the computer to the motherboard, where they can be controlled. The wire pins are very small, so it wasn't an easy task to put them in. We had to plug the computer in and try to turn it on, and if it didn't work, go back and move around the tiny wires again.

If anyone ever traps you in a dark alleyway and asks you what the connection wire is called for the hard drive, it's called the SATA!

We also installed the Intel CPU fan. It's really something to think about how much heat these parts generate if you need one giant fan for the CPU alone.

So there's the finished computer! When it works, the motherboard light turns on. Of course, that light is pretty extraneous, so we turned it off when we booted the computer. Still looks cool though.

The MUCH more interesting news is that I think I found a much better solution to the cost issue I raised in my last post! How many of you have heard of ARM processors, or maybe Raspberry Pi computers?

ARM processors are the tiny processors they use in phones, calculators, etc. Unlike Intel Processors, they can be manufactured by any company if they license the building plans from ARM. This makes them significantly cheaper.

ARM processors are built with the main goal of energy efficiency-- they shouldn't get extremely hot and shouldn't require much energy input. This is why they're used in phones. ARM processors deplete the battery much less, so the phone requires less recharging.

Make no mistake- they aren't as powerful as Intel processors. But look at this: while Intel processors like the i7 are $250 alone, you can get an ARM processor (a quad core one!), its motherboard, 1GB of RAM, and an Ethernet connection for $35 dollars. So if I want eight intel nodes, and each node is estimated at $300 (I'm not even including the hard drives), then that would cost $2400. In that money, I can get SIXTY EIGHT ARM COMPUTERS. SIXTY EIGHT.

It's not that Intel doesn't have processors that are as energy efficient as ARM- their atom processor doesn't take up very much heat, but since they have to compete at the price of ARM processors, they don't make very much money off of it. Also, Intel's focus has always been the most computing power, at the expense of energy efficiency. It's very hard for the company to turn everything around and focus on energy efficiency all of a sudden, when companies like ARM have always focused on energy efficiency.

And that, friends, is the solution to my problem. I'll leave you to think about what this huge cost difference means for the future of Intel and the microprocessor industry...and if you want another perspective, this article is pretty good.

Until Next Time,
Anvita

Assembling a Computer: Part 1

Hello All,

So this week I actually got my hands dirty and tried assembling a computer myself. Not the supercomputer, of course, only a desktop.

But the assembly of a desktop is very similar to the assembly of a supercomputer node, and it's very helpful to get hands on experience with all the parts.

I also got a much better idea for the cost of the whole thing. This computer costs around $630 dollars- with two terabytes of memory in the hard drive (that's a LOT), built in wireless in the motherboard, and an Intel i5 quadcore processor. Granted- this is better quality than a regular node would need to be, because this computer is going to be used for learning server programming, but still, this is a problem.

The processor is one of the costliest components- $200. So my goal of making 4 nodes in $1000 doesn't look all that feasible if I use only Intel processors, which are the best. AMD has good processors, but they use a lot more heat. In close quarters with four other nodes, that could be a problem. So that's a problem I'm going to have to solve in the next few weeks.

But anyways, I took many, many pictures while assembling:

Here are all the parts- assembling a computer is actually pretty simple! you have the case with all the wires, a hard drive, a processor (blue)...

And my favorite part:

The "Vengeance" memory pack (as you can see, computer science naming still goes along with the world domination theme.)

They look kind of like haircombs, and go into the motherboard as such.

 

I had to push surprisingly hard to get them in, while the motherboard was half in the air. When I asked why we didn't just keep the motherboard on the cardboard, I learned that pushing the motherboard into the cardboard with so much force would ruin the back of it.

This is the inner circuitry in the hard drive. You have to hold all the computer parts very very carefully, or you can ruin them. I learned to never touch any of the circuitry (anything on a green board). The hard drive goes into the bottom part of the computer with three screws. Less, and the hard drive starts to vibrate and eventually gets destroyed.

The most interesting part to me was putting the processor in. I'd read that processors have a zero insertion force, and had visions of some magical suction type process, where I would hold the processor over the slot and it would be sucked in to the correct position. Alas, this was not the case, but I'll show you how it does work.

The big black square in the middle is the spot for the processor- basically the "brain" of the computer.

You open a little latch on the side, and then you can see the tiny tiny gold plates.

Instead of suction, you have to match a small triangle on the processor with a small triangle on the CPU slot, and then just drop the processor on. If the triangle isn't there (like on ours), you can match by looking at the back.

You then close the latch, and the big black square just pops off. You then screw the motherboard in, and the heart of the computer is done. I didn't believe it when someone told me they could make this in 30 minutes, but it's actually not very complicated.

All that remain are pesky power wires and installing fans. That will be part 2 of this series, and I hope to bring it to you either tomorrow or the day after.

Best,
Anvita